Urothelial carcinoma is the most common type of bladder cancer, also affecting other parts of the urinary system. It is an aggressive disease and its treatment remains challenging for clinicians. Currently, each year there are nearly 80,000 new cases of urothelial cancer and approximately 16,000 deaths from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. Unfortunately, there are limited therapeutic options for those with advanced urothelial carcinoma especially after the disease spreads to other distant organs (metastasis). Even with platinum-based chemotherapy and the introduction of immunotherapy, median overall survival is poor, and a five-year survival is only 15%.

The idea of metastasectomy (surgical removal of metastatic tumors) has been proven to be an established option in the treatment of patients with other solid tumors, however, little is known regarding the benefit and safety of this type of surgery for urothelial carcinoma patients because previous studies were mostly from single institutions and limited by small sample size.

Drs. Bishoy Faltas, Scott Tagawa, Jim Hu, along with others at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, partnered with the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to address this very question and their research has now been published in Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations. Their goal was to examine the use and outcomes of surgery in older patients with urothelial carcinoma in a large population-based dataset. To do this, clinicians conducted a SEER-Medicare study. SEER is a database run by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that collects large population-based data that provide detailed information about Medicare beneficiaries with cancer. The research was analyzed based on the billing codes the physician’s offices used when submitting insurance claims.

Using this data, clinicians found 70,648 urothelial carcinoma patients and from those, they identified 497 patients who had at least one surgery to remove a metastatic lesion during a median follow-up of 40 months. The median overall survival after the first surgery was 19 months. In this selected patient population, over a third of patients were alive at three years. The median length of stay after surgery was seven days with 10% of patients having at least one complication within 30 days of discharge.

“It would be very difficult to conduct a randomized clinical trial testing surgery versus no surgery in those with urothelial carcinoma, so reviewing a large dataset retroactively is the next best thing,” says Dr. Bishoy Faltas, Assistant Professor and medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Genitourinary Oncology Program. “Our study shows that in well-selected patients with urothelial carcinoma with a reasonable life expectancy, resection of metastatic lesions is safe and associated with long-term survival and potential cures,” says Dr. Faltas.

What are Other Benefits of Surgery?

Aside from the fact that surgery can prolong life for those with urothelial carcinoma, there are other benefits as well. One of the benefits is enabling the testing of tissue that is removed. Studying this tissue allows clinicians to continue performing precision medicine and treating the individual, not the disease. As described in a previous research study conducted by Dr. Bishoy Faltas titled, “Clonal Evolution of Chemotherapy-Resistant Urothelial Carcinoma” published in Nature Genetics, it has been proven that tumors change and undergo clonal evolution over time especially in metastases after chemotherapy.

“Understanding the evolution of urothelial carcinoma is a central biological question and one that we can only truly begin to understand by testing tissue samples from patients at various periods throughout their treatment,” says Dr. Faltas.

Another potential benefit of surgery is the cost implication. With drug prices continuing to rise, depending on insurance carriers, there is the potential that surgery may be less costly than some of the long-term medications associated with treatment for urothelial cancer. Cost implications of course vary for each patient; however, it is one of the factors along with many others that should be addressed and discussed with healthcare teams.

“There is a lot more work to be done to help treat patients with urothelial cancer, however with the dataset we’ve compiled through our latest study, we’re able to glean the potential benefits of metastasectomy in older adults with urothelial cancer, which could lead to prolonged life and potential cures.”

For nearly 10 years, we have been proud to participate in a month-long campaign to raise awareness and funds for men’s health each November, also known as Movember.

The campaign dates back to 2003 when two friends in Australia tried to bring back the moustache trend by growing out moustaches (or “mo’s” as they are commonly called in Australia) during the month of November. The following year, after realizing that this facial hair served as a conversation-starter, they decided to channel that energy to raise money for prostate cancer research.

Awareness (and mustaches) have grown over the years, and in 2007, Movember officially launched a global campaign to change the face of men’s health – literally and figuratively through increased awareness and funds. Another way people can get involved is by “moving” and setting a walking, running, biking or swimming goal and working to achieve it every day throughout Movember. Today, over 5 million people from more than 20 countries have collectively raised over $700 million dollars. The Movember Foundation uses this money to fund research around the world to reduce the number of men dying from prostate and testicular cancer, as well as mental health issues. Movember is committed to funding research that will reduce the number of deaths from prostate and testicular cancer by 50% by 2030.

We’ve been proud Movember partners for nearly 10 years now and have benefitted from many Movember research grants to further our cancer research, most recently being named one of six teams to receive a 2017 Challenge Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) and the Movember Foundation to investigate new, cutting-edge treatments for metastatic prostate cancer.

This 2017 Movember-PCF Challenge Grant has funded our latest research developing new treatments for treatment-resistant advanced prostate cancer. More details on the grant and research it supports can be found here.
In past years, Movember-funded grants have supported our research in the following areas:

Circulating tumor cell (CTC) tests to predict which patients are more or less likely to respond to hormonal therapy or chemotherapy.

Assessing the genome of initial tumors in the prostate compared to advanced, treatment resistant tumors.

Evaluating inflammation in adipose (fat) tissue around the prostate, which is associated with tumor growth.

Throughout the month of November, staff and physicians at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian will be growing mustaches, exercising and raising funds for the Movember Foundation in support of our shared mission to cure cancer.

Grow a moustache and commit to going razor-free. It’s a great conversation starter to encourage friends and family members to donate to Movember.

Spin for a cure! Kill two birds with one stone. Get your workout in and support the Wild Weill Cornell Mos. Attend our cycling events on November 16th and 18th, with proceeds benefiting our team’s Movember fundraising goal.

Shave the date and celebrate the end of Movember by attending a happy hour. Stay tuned for final details including date and location.

Last year, we raised $13,000. We want to top that this year by raising $20K or more. Help us get there and remember that every dollar counts in the quest to cure cancer!

Radiation is one of the most common treatments for prostate cancer. Using radiation, physicians are able to cure some men with cancer confined to the prostate, as well as improve symptoms for men with metastatic disease. There are many different types of radiation treatments.

One type of treatment includes injecting radioactive isotopes into the blood in order to directly reach the prostate cancer cells regardless of where they are located in the body, including the cells that have spread to the bone and other organs. For example, Radium-223 (Xofigo) is FDA-approved to treat prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone and has been shown to improve both the quality and duration of the lives of men with advanced prostate cancer.

Radioimmunotherapy or radioligand therapy involves the practice of attaching a radioactive isotope to a cancer-targeting antibody or small molecule that binds only to a specific cancer-related molecule on a tumor cell. This is similar to a “lock and key” scenario, where the antibody or molecule resembles the key that will only recognize a very specific lock (the cancer-related molecule).

Essentially all prostate cancers have a specific “lock” called prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA). This “lock” is a protein that sits on the surface of most prostate cancer cells but is absent from most other normal places in the body.

Physicians and scientists have engineered very specific “keys” in the form of monoclonal antibodies and molecules that will bind only to PSMA. When we attach radioactive particles to these keys, we are able to deliver what we call “molecularly targeted” radiotherapy.

For example, J591 is a monoclonal antibody (an engineered protein) that recognizes PSMA. Actinium-225 (225Ac) is a small radioactive particle that emits alpha-particles, a powerful form of radiation requiring fewer particles to cause damage to the cancer cells. When these are attached to one another, we call the compound 225Ac-J591 (a radioactive particle linked with a monoclonal antibody). It is designed so that J591 will recognize the PSMA on the prostate cancer cells and bring the radioactive particle 225Ac with it into prostate cancer cells wherever it goes in the body.

Our physicians and scientists are building on prior laboratory-based research presented at the 2017 Meeting for the Annual Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and are now studying the role this experimental therapy may have for men with advanced prostate cancer that has spread throughout the body. Thanks to generous support from the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the NIH SPORE award, Dr. Scott Tagawa, medical oncologist and Director of the Weill Cornell Medicine Genitourinary (GU) Oncology Program, and his team are conducting the first-ever clinical trial testing the PSMA-targeted antibody and radioactive alpha particles (225Ac-J591) for treatment of advanced prostate cancer. This promising new and unique approach has the potential to lead to another treatment option for those patients who are not experiencing the best clinical outcomes possible from standard of care therapies. Some men in Germany have received 225Ac linked to PSMA-617 with a handful of cases published with impressive responses. However, no formal studies have been performed and there are reports of bothersome dry mouth (xerostomia) and the potential for delayed kidney damage (seen in mice).

“We look forward to advancing science and also making this treatment available to men with advanced prostate cancer in the near future, says Dr. Scott Tagawa. “Our goal is to translate the existing knowledge base into true clinical gains for prostate cancer patients and it’s great that in October, 2017, we are able to treat our first patient.”